All 4 Uses of
approach
in
The Call of the Wild
- The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars.
p. 4.3approached = gone to
- He did not like to be approached on his blind side.
p. 32.2approached = got near
- In fact, his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose.
p. 65.6 *approached = got near (figuratively)
- Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side.
p. 88.3unapproachable = unwilling to allow anyone to come closestandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unapproachable means not and reverses the meaning of approachable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
Definitions:
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(1)
(approach as in: approached the city) to get closer to (near in space, time, quantity, or quality)
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(2)
(approach as in: use the best approach) a way of doing something; or a route that leads to a particular place
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(3)
(approach as in: approached her with the proposal) to begin communication with someone about something -- often a proposal or a delicate topic
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(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely (and typically only in classic literature), the phrase nearest approach to as used in "her nearest approach to an apology" or "her nearest approach to a smile" typically means that "something is as close to something else as it ever gets." "As near an approach to" can have a similar meaning.